California school district reluctantly allows high school paper to publish article about student working in porn

A public high school newspaper intended to publish a profile of a student working in the porn industry. But on April 11, 2019, the superintendent of the school district wrote a letter to the paper’s adviser, demanding that a copy of the story be submitted to the district before its publication. Despite facing threats of dismissal, the adviser refused the demands. Ultimately, the district, on the advice of an outside lawyer, allowed publication of the article, which was released May 3. 

Key Players

Established in 1991, The Bruin Voice is the award-winning bimonthly student-run newspaper of Bear Creek High School in Stockton, in the Central Valley of California. In 2013, The Voice was listed as one of the country’s best high school newspapers by the National Scholastic Press Association. 

Kathi Duffel is The Voice’s faculty adviser, who has worked with the newspaper since its inception.  Duffel also teaches comparative literature and journalism at the high school. In 2015, the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists recognized her for having “been an unwavering supporter of the paper’s independence and First Amendment rights.”

Further Details

The conflict between The Voice and the Lodi Unified School District, which oversees Bear Creek High School, is one more chapter in the continuing struggle around the United States between school administrators and high school newspapers related to Free Speech rights and regulation. 

At Bear Creek, officials from the school and the district have attempted, on several occasions since the publication’s founding, to censor material it planned to publish.

In its first year, for example, the administration tried to stop The Voice from running two ads — one from Planned Parenthood and another that featured a condom — according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The administration backed down after The Voice threatened to sue. 

In 2010, after The Voice published a series of stories revealing mismanagement by the then-principal and his administration, the principal attempted to review every issue before its publication, according to the Chronicle. He would later resign.

Three years later, when The Voice featured a story uncovering faults in the school’s safety guidelines, the then-principal confiscated 1,700 copies of the newspaper to prevent their distribution, the Chronicle reports. The story quickly went viral, and the principal and vice principal were asked to resign. 

For the April 2019 edition of The Voice, a news editor pitched a profile story about Caitlin Fink, a senior at Bear Creek High School who had decided to enter the porn industry. Fink expressed a desire to tell her story publicly. 

Fearing the story would be too lewd or obscene to publish (given an alleged focus on the “production of adult videos”), Cathy Nichols-Washer, superintendent of the Lodi Unified School District, wrote a letter to Duffel, requesting the article be submitted to the school board for review before publication, according to The Washington Post. Nichols-Washer threatened to fire Duffel if she did not comply, but Duffel refused to hand over the article. 

In a trailblazing effort to protect student Free Speech rights, California had introduced Education Code Section 48907 in 1977. The law declares that students “shall have the right to exercise freedom of speech and of the press including, but not limited to, the use of bulletin boards, the distribution of printed materials or petitions, the wearing of buttons, badges, and other insignia, and the right of expression in official publications, whether or not the publications or other means of expression are supported financially by the school or by use of school facilities,” unless the speech is “obscene, libelous, or slanderous.” 

The student reporter who wrote the article in question in April 2019 told the Chronicle that it did not talk about sex but instead focused on Fink’s personal story. The school district agreed to Duffel’s proposal that Matthew Cate, an independent lawyer, former journalist, and Free Speech advocate, determine whether or not the story violated educational codes. 

Outcome

Cate finds that the story does not violate educational codes

In response to Cate’s determination that the story was acceptable, Paul Gant, a lawyer representing the district, informed Cate on May 1 that the district would not stop the publication of the story, Boston.com reports. However, Gant suggested that it would be legal to review and possibly censor the piece. 

The Voice published the article May 3. The same day, the newspaper released an editorial titled “The Voice shall not be silenced!” 

“In 2013, 2010, and, even back as far as 1992, the Lodi Unified School District attempted to censor various articles,” the piece reads. “…and every time, the fearless Bruin Voice adviser, Kathi Duffel, alongside her old friend, the First Amendment, proved the District wrong. Duffel, backed by hundreds of adoring students and 33 years of teaching for the district, has never lost a battle with LUSD, and she isn’t going to end her winning streak any time soon.”